Senators

... that the screaming gladiator on TV is one of my acid flashbacks.

That dipstick didn't REALLY walk up from the Senators' room onto centre ice.

What a pathetic, jive -ass franchise.

Worse than Toronto.

And now that cop is going to sing.

Go Penguins! 

Oct. 8, 1956: Don Larsen pitches a perfect game at Yankee Stadium.

April 1, 2008: Montreal Canadiens play a perfect game at Scotiabank Place.

That's what Alex Kovalev called it. And, as has been the case throughout this amazing season, Kovy is right.

With Saku Koivu, Mike Komisarek and Francis Bouillon out of the lineup, Canadiens played a flawless road game in which everyone contributed. After sub-par performances in Buffalo and Toronto, the team kicked butt and took no prisoners in Ottawa.

Given the circumstances – Canadiens' injuries, Senators desperately needing a win – it was a more impressive W than the 7-5 game at the Bell Centre.

The last time Canadiens won a division title, it was called the Adams Division.

It's somehow fitting that in the game that sewed up the Northeast Division, Guy Carbonneau buttressed his Adams Award credentials.

Carbo had his guys ready last night. He and his assistants drew up a game plan – focused on containment of Ottawa's top line and relentless pressure in the Senators' end – that was executed to perfection.

When a guy like Mathieu Dandenault comes out of the pressbox to score a goal and play his butt off, you have to credit the motivational skills of his coach.

When Ryan O'Byrne is killing penalties late in the game, you have to admire Carbo's ability to develop the confidence of young players.

And when a team that most experts picked to finish up the track has 100 points with two games to play ... well, memo to the Adams engraver: there are two Ns in "Carbonneau."

Canadiens' Alex Kovalev backhands his first-period, game-winning goal over Senators' Martin Gerber.
Chris Wattie, Reuters

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Has it been awhile since the Canadiens last won a division championship? Not to put too fine a point on it, but 16 years ago, Carey Price and Guillaume Latendresse hadn’t yet started the first grade.

Not that anyone is counting tonight. The Canadiens’ two 20-year-olds have moved to the head of the class along with a very happy group of teammates, the Habs clinching the Northeast Division title with a 3-0 victory in Kanata over the very vulnerable Ottawa Senators.

Alex Kovalev, with his 35th of the year, Mathieu Dandenault, with his ninth, and Andrei Kostitsyn, with his 26th, scored Montreal’s goals. Goalie Carey Price earned his third shutout of the season, making 32 saves. His glove grab in the final seconds was one for the books.

The last time Canadiens won a division title, Carey Price was 4 years old.

That was in 1991-'92. The division was called the Adams.

Price is older now. He is the Number One goaltender of a team that has won 45 games and amassed 100 points this season – with two games to play.

3-0 over the Stanley Cup finalists.

In Ottawa.

Playing without Saku Koivu, Mike Komisarek and Francis Bouillon, Canadiens played a textbook road game and clinched a Top Two seeding for the playoffs.

A little reading to prepare you for tonight's game in Ottawa:

• Red Fisher on the stern stuff of which Saku Koivu is made;
• Dave Stubbs on the mood in the Canadiens dressing room, and Carbo's plea to the media;
• Pat Hickey on the Senators, and on the test ahead for the Habs' depth;
• Herb Zurkowsky on a bad break, Steve Bégin and playing with pain.
• Mike Boone: Anyone else nervous?
• Roy MacGregor of the Globe and Mail on something amiss in Ottawa
• Ken Warren of the Ottawa Citizen on the Senators' unlikely playoff push

Let's accentuate the positive:

• Canadiens played probably their best first period of the season. And the second wasn't too shabby either.

• They scored seven goals against a Stanley Cup finalist that had won five of six previous meetings.

• Canadiens are first in the Eastern Conference, first in the Northeast Division and first Eastern team to clinch a playoff berth.

• The scoresheet included 14 home-team names.

• Through 40 minutes, Jason F. Spezza, Daniel F. Alfredsson and Dany F. Heatley were scoreless, had four shots and were each minus-2.

• Ottawa's comeback pre-empted a Brian McGrattan/Chris Neil goon show. 

So pop in the CD of Happy Days Are Here Again, hit Repeat and just keep smiling until the playoffs.

Andrei Kostitsyn prepares to shovel in one of his two goals tonight, beating Ottawa goalie Martin Gerber and defenceman Chris Phillips.
John Mahoney, Gazette

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Forty minutes of superb hockey. Twenty minutes of absolute domination by the visitor.

Finally: a 7-5 Canadiens victory over the Ottawa Senators tonight, and a confirmed ticket to the postseason, the Habs the first Eastern Conference team to assure its participation in the playoffs.

With the victory, Montreal moves seven points ahead of the Senators in the Northeast Division. The Habs remain three points ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins, 4-1 losers tonight to the New York Islanders, in the East; the Penguins hold a game in hand. And Montreal is five points up on New Jersey, the Devils having played two less games.

It was the best of times: a seemingly insurmountable 7-1 lead after 40 minutes, total domination of an Ottawa team that has kicked Canadiens butt all season.

But it was nearly the worst of times, as the Senators scored four unanswered goals and outshot Canadiens 14-2 in the third period.

When it was finally over, to the vast relief of the home team and 21,273 fans, Canadiens had clinched a playoff spot and were atop the Eastern Conference with 96 points – the most they've attained since the 1993-'94 season.

And despite the near-death experience tonight, the team has exceeded everyone's great expectations. 

"We're definitely pretty pumped and happy we clinched," said Christopher Higgins. "It was a nice win for us.

"The third period you can throw out the window."

Only if no one is walking by on the street below. The Senators staged a scary rally and were on the power play with 2:30 to go when Higgins made an heroic clearing play on the PK.

"It was getting a litttle antsy there, a little hairy," Higgins said of Ottawa's late-game power play. "But the PK came through at the right times.

"They were coming on, and we know a team like that can score goals in bunches. We had that game against the Rangers, so that was in the back of our minds. A team with that kind of firepower has the ability to come back." 

Canadiens also killed a third-period 5-on-3 disadvantage. Overall, the PK went 5-for-6 as three of Ottawa's third-period goals were scored at even-strength. 

"No excuse for letting up as much as we did," Higgins said. "Obviously we would have liked to make it a little easier on ourselves." 

Having clinched a playoff spot, Canadiens, Higgins said, can "focus on fine-tuning our game and having a lot of fun because this is a great time for playing hockey."

And a great time for watching hockey – at least for 40 minutes.

"Obviously when you're up 7-1 you think you can take two points," said Saku Koivu.  "But that probably won't be the case in the playoffs. We might have  one- or two-goal lead and the focus has to stay consistent." 

Pat Hickey reports from today's Canadiens practice that head coach Guy Carbonneau expects to use the same lineup tomorrow vs. the Ottawa Senators as that which he used Saturday against Boston.

There's a slight chance that Guillaume Latendresse will be ready to go, having missed Saturday's game with neck spasms, but it seemed unlikely.

Carey Price gets the start in goal.

One team played postseason hockey at the Bell Centre last night.

It was not your Montreal Canadiens.

Ottawa wanted it more, and the Senators played that way: tight, hard-hitting, highly-disciplined hockey. The kind that wins games in April, May and maybe June.

The Senators won battles for loose pucks. They moved efficiently through the neutral zone. They scored playoff goals. Nothing fancy. No pretty tic-tac-toe plays. Two Jason Spezza tip-ins and Antoine Vermette cashed a rebound.

Canadiens brought their October game. There wasn't much intensity or effort until it was out of reach.

Facing two goaltenders named Martin this week, Canadiens beat Brodeur and were shut out in their own building by Gerber.

The Swiss goalie, whom Canadiens owned when he was in Carolina, seems to have emerged as Number One in Ottawa after a lengthy soap opera. Gerber is inelegant, but last night he was effective.

As were his teammates. Ottawa played stifling New Jersey/Florida-style defence.

There've been more exciting nights at the Bell Centre this season. But if there are to be many more games there next month, the go-go Canadiens have to figure out how to play this way.

Updated at 10:34 pm with full audio

Ottawa Senators' Jason Spezza celebrates his first-period goal, his joy not impressing Canadiens goalie Carey Price.
Allen McInnis, Gazette

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The Canadiens could have put themselves four points up on the Ottawa Senators tonight and solely into first place of the National Hockey League's Eastern Conference.

Instead, with a 3-0 Bell Centre loss to the Senators, a team against which they've struggled mightily all season, the Habs (39-24-9) now find themselves in fifth place in the East, tied with the Pittsburgh Penguins (40-24-7) and Ottawa (40-25-7) with 87 points but trailing both based on games played or won.

New Jersey (41-24-6), which beat the Minnesota Wild 4-3 in a shootout, vaulted everyone into first with 88 points.

The Carolina Hurricanes also lead the Canadiens overall, their 81 points putting them atop the Southeast Division.

Montreal is four points up on the New York Rangers, but the Broadway Blueshirts hold two games in hand.

Ottawa's Jason Spezza scored a pair, his 29th and 30th of the season – No. 6 and 7 against the Habs – to deflate a Bell Centre crowd that came ready to party and left like it was off to a funeral. It was the Canadiens' fifth loss to Ottawa in six games this season – and the clubs will play each other twice more by April 1.

Doesn't sound right, does it?

How about this then: F.ifth place?

The loss to Ottawa and a shootout win by New Jersey left Canadiens behind the Devils, the Senators, the Hurricanes and the Penguins in the tight Eastern Division playoff race.

Gerber stopped 28 shots and became the fourth visiting goaltender to hang a goose egg on Canadiens this season, after Jocelyn Thibault, Dany Sabourin and Pascal Leclaire.

Goaltending and special teams.

While Gerber was stopping everything and the Ottawa PK went 3-for-3, Jason Spezza scored twice on the power play.

Ottawa played hard-hitting, opportunistic hockey for 60 minutes. Canadiens played in fits and starts, with most of the fits experienced by the top two lines.

Saku Koivu, Chris Higgins and Sergei Kostitsyn had zero shots on goal. The Tomas Plekanec line had eight shots, but Gerber was rarely pressured.

"Against teams like Anaheim and Ottawa, you have to be ready to work hard," said coach Guy Carbonneau.

"Their forecheck wasn't as hard as usual," said Koivu, "but they really played well between the bluelines.

"They played tight. It was a little bit different game than what we've faced lately. We didn't use our speed as well as we have been and some of the passes weren't on the tape. Even when we had the chances we didn't capitalize on them.

"We just didn't get things going tonight.

"It's not we didn't work hard," Koivu added. "We just weren't as hungry as we should have been ... When you play a top team, an OK night is not going to get you anywhere."

A less-than-OK night leaves the heretofore high-flying Canadiens out of home-ice advantage were the playoffs to begin tomorrow.

Ottawa's fifth W in six games against Canadiens this season moved the Senators to the top of the Northeast Division. The teams have the same number of points, but Ottawa has 40 wins to 39 for Canadiens.

Any shrinks or dream interpreters out there?

I had a dream last night in which Alex Kovalev is standing on a downtown street and I'm looking up at him. Overhead, the clear blue sky is filled with exotic kites.

I'm mesmerized. But a certain point, Kovalev, quite annoyed, demands to  know: "What are you staring at?"

Then the focus shifts to Guy Carbonneau's press scrum. In shirtsleeves and sweating profusely, Carbonneau is asked if his greatest coaching achievement has been successfully motivating Kovalev. Carbo starts to answer, but I woke up.

Meaning?

I have no clue ... unless the kites represent the lofty aspirations of Canadiens fans eight days ago. 

A member of the Scotiabank Place ice crew gathers up hats tossed on the ice to celebrate Jason Spezza's three goals. And yes, that's a Canadiens tuque among the hats she's picked up.
André Ringuette, NHLI via Getty Images

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Much buzz the past week has been about how close the Canadiens are to the Eastern Conference-leading Ottawa Senators. Make that how close they were. Tonight, the teams were a few acres apart and the Habs now trail Ottawa by five points, with two tough midweek games awaiting them in Florida.

The Senators, with their No. 1 line of Daniel Alfredsson, Dany Heatley and Jason Spezza reunited after a spell of injuries, were men against the Canadiens boys, rolling to a 6-1 victory at Scotiabank Place.

The Ottawa trio earned 15 points in skating roughshod over the Habs. The Senators have outscored Montreal 30-11 since last losing to them on home ice on Nov. 13, 2006.

Good thing Canadiens don't have to play in London or Paris.

Alexander Ovechkin scores four goals to beat them in Washington.

That one required overtime. In the capital of our great country, the Senators needed five minutes to put this one out of reach. The line of Jason Spezza, Dany Heatley and Daniel Alfredsson scored six goals and amassed 15 points. Spezza had a career-best three goals and three assists.

Canadiens had not lost a game by five goals since january 2007 – in Ottawa.

Otawa's defence controlled the Tomas Plekanec line and threw a blanket over the Canadiens' power play. Canadiens hit five goalposts and showed signs of life after falling behind early, but when Heatley made it 4-0 in the second period, that was pretty much the ballgame.

It might be time to stop thinking about first place ... and worrying about the playoffs.

A win, two valuable points to move within one of the Senators ... but it was oddly unsatisfying.

You like to see your team at its best in the late stages of a game. Example: Eli Manning driving the Giants down the feld with the clock ticking down.

Your Montreal Canadiens: Four shots in the third period. The tying goal was inches from the line when Francis Bouillon swept it away. Saku Koivu (more about the captain later) lost a late faceoff in the Canadiens' end, and were it not for a heroic zone-clearing effort by Steve Bégin, that one could have headed for OT.

Playing without Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley – both of whom will be back for the rematch at Scotiabank Place on Saturday – the Senators fired 12 shots at Cristobal Huet in the third period. They buzzed his net, harassed him, forced the Frenchman, he admitted later, to lose his habitual cool.

What is it with Canadiens' three-goal leads? Nashville, the Rangers ... and Ottawa darn near. I'm not enough of an Xs-and-Os guy to analyze the way Canadiens protect leads. But whatever the system is, it's not working.

But a win is a win. Cristobal Huet was excellent ... again. The defence played well without one of its stalwarts, Roman Hamrlik. And the Canadiens' indisputable number one line – Tomas Plekanec centring Alex Kovalev and Andrei Kostitsyn – is treating Montreal fans to thrills we haven't had since Jacques Lemaire was centring Guy Lafleur and Steve Shutt.

Canadiens defenceman Mark Streit celebrates with teammate Alexei Kovalev after his second-period goal on Tuesday night at the Bell Centre.
Pierre Obendrauf, Gazette

Updated by The Gazette's Kevin Mio

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It was a lot closer than it had to be, but the Canadiens managed to hold on for a 4-3 win over the Ottawa Senators at the Bell Centre on Tuesday night.

Ottawa jumped out to an early 1-0 lead when Chris Kelly scored only 2:42 into the game after Cristobal Huet mishandled the puck behind his net.

But the Habs rallied after that with goals by Andrei Kostitsyn, on the power play, and Tomas Plekanec before the first period was over to grab a 2-1 lead.

Mark Streit padded the Montreal lead when he scored with a slap shot that whistled over Martin Gerber's shoulder for a 3-1 Canadiens lead eight minutes into the second period. Plekanec added his second of the game, and 19th of the season, at the midway point of the frame by banking a shot off Gerber's shoulder from the side of the net.

Canadiens moved to within a point of Ottawa in the Eastern Conference standings by edging the Senators 4-3 in a game that got very tense – and occcasionally nasty – in the third period.

When it was over, Christopher Higgins – sporting his new beard and a fat, bloodied lip – talked about the line that stole the show en route to sweeping the post-game three stars.

Alex Kovalev, Higggins said, "leaves a couple guys open-mouthed on the bench."

"It's really fun to watch that line," he added.

For much of the game, the Senators watched Kovalev, Tomas Plekanec and Andrei Kostistyn conduct a puck-control clinic. Each member of the line racked up three points in the win.

Kovalev said he and his linemates were happy with the way they've been playing, but the Canadiens need "one, two, three, even four good lines.

"You create plays, you try different things," Kovalev added. "Eventually you get to the stage where you pretty much know where everybody is without looking.

"I'm happy with the way our line is going right nnow. We should push ourselves a little bit more to be more successful."

In analyzing Ottawa's comeback from a three-goal deficit after 40 minutes, Kovalev said Canadiens "stopped skating and putting pressure on their D and the game turned right away."

"We should have done that at the beginning (of the third period). It looks like it takes us a few minutes to wake up in every period."

•  •  •

It took me the whole game to wake up to a technical goof (commited by me) that wiped out all my live blogging.

I've restored it ... if anyone cares at this point. 

Larry Robinson ducks beneath the banner that soon would be heading up to the Bell Centre roof. With him are Canadiens alternate captains Alex Kovalev (far left), Christopher Higgins and captain Saku Koivu.
Dave Sandford, Getty Images

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The Canadiens watched a magical pre-game ceremony to retire the No. 19 of Hall of Famer Larry Robinson, but they couldn't create any magic of their own.

Montreal dropped a 4-2 decision to the Ottawa Senators, who had lost five of their last seven games at the Bell Centre but have beaten the Habs three straight this season.

The Senators, outshot 38-29, were still smarting from the 3-0 spanking they took in Toronto on Saturday, and put four past Cristobal Huet. The Habs were down 2-0 and 4-1 and clawed one goal back, off the stick of Christopher Higgins in the third period, but that's where it ended. Guillaume Latendresse had Montreal's first goal.

The Habs are on Long Island Wednesday to play the Islanders, then have a home-and-home vs. Buffalo on the road Friday and at the Bell Centre Saturday.

That's why they've won 13 games.

Make it 14.

Trailing 1-0 well into the third period, the Ottawa Senators take control with two quick goals en route to a 3-1 win.

Martin Gerber stymied the Canadiens long enough for Ottawa to seize momentum and take cntrol, largely on the strength of dominant play by Daniel Alfredsson and Dany Heatley. Playing without centre Jason Spezza, the star wingers got rolling when Senators coach John Paddock put Randy Robitaille between them, subbing for Mike Fisher.

Canadiens played about 50 solid minutes. But down the stretch they couldn't get back into the game. They were second on the puck, lost faceoffs ... it turned really ugly really fast.

[Due to unavoidable technical issues, the comments from today's liveblog now live here. Thanks for your understanding as we work out the kinks in this new system. --HI/O tech staff]